Jai Alai IPA - White Oak | Cigar City Brewing

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Notes / Commercial Description:
This is an American White Oak-aged version of Jai Alai India Pale Ale. The white oak adds smoothing notes of vanilla and slight hints of dill to the aroma and flavor profile. The finish is elegantly dry due to the light tannin notes from oak aging and though still loaded with hop flavor, hop bitterness is more restrained.

Nose is barely distinguishable from classic Jai Alai. Big waves of citrus and pine, balanced against both pale and caramel malt grains. Floral, juicy, resinous. However, there is a slightly sour and vanilla oak note that provides additional depth.

Just picked this up at brewery only a few day old. have been wanting to try this for years but could never get my hands on it. Wow as this good. Like the can says, "hop bitterness is more restrained". This is do to the aging in white oak and it works. Standard Jai Alai is a great DIPA, but being aged has mellowed out much of the strong syrupy taste and made it almost perfect. This also gets better as it warms up. One of the best DIPAs I've had yet. 4.75

Rich golden color and a few fingers of ivory foam. Aromas of herbal citrus and oaky tannins. Sweet tropical and citrusy fruits, like banana, mango, papaya, and orange, are blended, muted, and rounded-off with oaky tannins and suggestions of musky vanilla and coconut. Creamy smooth and softly carbonated. Impossible to just drink one.

A very pale, somewhat hazy, light gold to yellow with a white head. Looks nothing like the regular version for reference.

Aroma is pretty weak other than the wood aspect. Faint citrus fruits.

The oak flavor is very good and dominant. It is also sweet, but not in the same way as Jai Alai. More of a rich, vanilla like sweetness. The rest doesnt leave much to talk about. Muted, flat tasting tropical fruits and hops. Virtually no noticeable bitterness or bite.

Body is a tad under carbonated, but pretty normal for any barrel aged beer.

I was pretty disappointed in this one. It should be noted that I am not a fan of cask versions of beers, and this is exactly that. While the oak profile really shines, they lost everything else that Jai Alai offers. I am shocked at the love this gets. Far from being a bad beer, but I will stick to the original myself.

Appears well-carbonated. It's a pretty average look for an IPA, if I'm being honest. I'm optimistic.

AROMA: Tropical fruit mixes with bright floral tones and some evergreen/faint pine. Pale malt sweetness is present in just the right amount to keep it balanced, judging by the aroma. Tangerine, mango, citrus. Caramalt sneaks its way in but doesn't contribute too much sweetness.

Barrelwise, there isn't much as far as I can tell. Certainly nothing I'd pick up on in a blind tasting. Vanilla? I guess, faintly from barrel sugars (vanillin). Dill? Nah, that's too far a stretch. I don't get any vivid expressive white oak aside from maybe a reticent hint when I really search for it, but then I don't really want oak in an IPA anyway.

Aroma suggests a balanced flavourful IPA. I'm excited for the first sip.

Aromatic intensity is above average, though in terms of the style this isn't as "dank" as many (if you can stomach my use of the term).

TASTE: Hm. Caramalt is more pungent than I thought, and I do get some barrel sugar-derived vanilla in the third act (I guess because I'm looking; I doubt I'd find it in a blind tasting). Floral and piney hops join with tropical hops to good effect; luckily the tropical fruit is tangerine and citrus instead of the boozy pineapple I deplore in IPAs. Balanced yet hoppy, with plenty of flavour though depth of flavour could be improved (as with most beers).

Oak? Sorry, no. Maybe I'm just not used to looking for it in hoppy beers, but while I'll concede there's vanilla (vanillin), I find no rich white toasted oak in this. It does have impressive cohesion; maybe the oak is lending intangible unity to the build?

Flavour duration is ideal for an IPA. Flavour intensity is also right on the money for the style.

Adequate complexity. There's almost always room for more intricacy. It's a nice hop profile, but it doesn't really stand out as unique or special in the oversaturated IPA segment.

Complements the taste nicely. There's a natural harmony of flaovur here. I know the label tries to have us believe the finish will be "elegantly dry" but with all due respect to Cigar City I have to disagree. But I wouldn't want a dry finish anyway...

OVERALL: True to form, Cigar City's ostensibly oak-aged IPA is a solid brew within its style, though it arrives at its quality without committing to the gimmick it's marketed under...there isn't much barrel character here, and I have to wonder just how long they actually "age" it before shipping it out since it does still taste fresh. Does 2 weeks constitute "aged"? I guess it does for marketing.

But who cares? It's a tasty IPA that I'd happily buy again if not for the high price. I'd have to have it side by side with plain ole Jai Alai to really pick out the little nuances, but any beer that warrants a side by side with Jai Alai is a beer worth recommending in my book. More good work from a fine brewery.

White oak Aged Jai Alai pours a slightly cloudy tangerine amber with a smallish white head falling rather quickly and leaving a slippery film with light froth as lacing.

The aroma is one of the more distinctive beer scents I've run across. Strong citrus hop scents are nearly muted by a heavy woody and herbal scent from the white oak. If I hadn't read the description first I would have had a time running down the fresh herb scent and damned if it isn't fresh chopped dill along with a background of vanilla and freshly baked bread. Pretty amazing aroma actually.

Wow, this is Jai Alai Plus, fresh juicy citrussy hops as expected from Jai Alai and the Plus is the flavor added by the aging on white oak, an astringent woody flavor with the prevalent note of vanilla and a hint of tobacco. The fresh bready malts back up the hops and woody tones while the astringency lends an extra touch of dryness on the decidedly bitter finish. The white oak noted are among the strongest I've run across before and could easily be overpowering but I think a tight-rope act of balancing was achieved here by the brewers at Cigar City.

The mouthfeel is smooth and firm but manages to stay on the lighter side of medium in heaviness. Carbonation is moderate and lightly biting on the tongue.

I honestly don't understand why breweries feel that barrel aging an IPA is a good idea. Apparently, a lot of of people like it, especially in the case of Jai Alai. To me, the barrel aging on this beer is simply a masking agent whose sole purpose is to hide the bitter, skunky taste of a base beer that has gone bad while sitting in a barrel. In a way, it's somewhat successful, in that it makes an expired beer palatable, by adding different dimensions - a little bit of vanilla and kind of an earthy, mellow tone. At the same time, the aftertaste and baseline skunkiness remind me of that 10 month old IPA bottle that you find in the fridge every once in a while, that you open, take a drink of, then pour it down the drain. I like CCB beers, but I just don't get this one.

A delicious brew, very complex, blending flavors from a wide variety of sources. Big fruity hop and yeast ester notes, a rich biscuity malt backbone, drying tannic wood character as well as a nice round vanilla note. While to the average passer by this beer may not seem like anything revolutionary, to a fellow beer nerd and brewer, this beer is a game changer and is unique and delicious in a world of copycats and posers. I don't think I have had a beer that has impressed me more than this one.

Review #300. Seeing as how much the original Jai Alai took me by surprise, I was pretty stoked to try this one. Pours the color of copper pennies (as if there were other kinds of pennies) with a hazy, light-brown colored center. The eggshell-beige head lasts for a substantial amount of time and leaves some nice lacing along the glass. Aroma has a HUGE oak profile; woody, wet, dense, tiny hints of vanilla and tannin. I am actually picking up a whiskey aroma, much akin to Jack Daniels, possibly due to the heavy white oak. Some hop aromas are present; mild citrus, orange, pineapple - unfortunately pushed to the background by the heavy oak. I mean, I know it's a "white oak aged" beer, but it's almost a little TOO much.

The taste falls right in line, heavy white oak, whiskey, touches of vanilla, wet cardboard, and some light spice. The citrus from the hop is there in flavor, but certainly not in bitterness - but what do you expect from an aged IPA? Citrus peel, orange zest, pineapple, mango - the fruit jubilee is extremely mellow compared to the original Jai Alai, which was one of the things that made me so crazy about the original. This is partially due to the fact that the IPA has been aged and the hops therefore will lose some of their "oomph", but it's also not helping that the white oak is a little too overshadowing. It still has that bright and sweet flavor, and the malts add a little bit of bready sweetness, but overall it's pretty dull compared to the original. Medium bodied, carbonation is medium, a touch slick on the palate.

Not a bad beer - definitely interesting and unlink anything else, but honestly I'm kind of disappointed and was let down just a bit. Maybe it's because I was so emphatic about the original Jai Alai and I was expecting too much. The white oak would be a nice addition if it were toned down just a bit, but it's a little too strong, distracting from most of the other flavors in the beer.